She is a teacup. A teeny, tiny, long-haired black and tan dachshund, small enough to fold into two cupped hands, with the biggest heart on this mountain.
But before I tell you who she is, I have to tell you how she came.
I had a Jack Russell once, named Milo. Thirteen years of living and loving, gifted to me by my dear friends Cheryl and Anne, to hold my heart after my son Ryan’s death. And when she passed, the grief was the kind that empties the furniture out of you, the kind that sweeps the house bare.
And then one night, an angel came to me, in a dream.
Do not grieve Milo, the angel said. Her soul is returning to you. Your sign will be rainbows.
I held that. The way you hold something you cannot yet explain but know, somewhere beneath knowing, to be true.
On Easter Sunday, the 12th of April 2020 , resurrection day, the day the whole story of returning is told in churches all over the world, a tiny pup was born.
And over the ocean in Durban that morning, double rainbows arched across the sky. The whole city saw them. People posted them everywhere on Facebook, these two brightest most beautiful bands of colour over the water, and my feed filled with rainbows on the very day she drew her first breath.
There is was – Rainbows. On Easter.
The day of return.
I knew.
I knew the way you know the things that arrive from beyond.
Milo’s soul was coming back to me.
And her name would be Molly Joy.
I did not choose her name lightly. I never do.
My great-grandmother was called Molly. She was an angel reader and a healer in Ireland in her day, well known for it, a woman who worked with the unseen the way other people work with their hands.
I am blessed to carry her gift. The same one. Passed down the long thread of the women in my family, to me.
Molly Joy’s namesake ,my great-grandmother, my lineage, the healing that runs in my blood.
And the Joy part of her name came from Denise Joy, Lance’s mother.
Two women. Two sides. One tiny dog to carry both names out into the world.
Molly Joy.
She was born on a 12.
And those of you who have walked with me a while know what I do with a number like that. One and two make three.
Three. The number of creation.
Of divine completeness.
The number I keep finding all over this mountain. Even our farm number is Farm 33
And you know what happens when you tip a 3 gently onto its side. It grows wings. I did not have to imagine those wings. Because Molly Joy has a patch of pure white fur on her tiny chest ,and it is shaped, exactly, like a pair of wings.
She came into this world wearing them. The 3, tipped onto its side, made into a soul and sent back to me with rainbows for a calling card and wings stitched into her chest.
I told you. Nothing about our lives are just random.
Lance calls her his little Ghandi.
Because she is the peacemaker of the pack. The schmoozer. The one who wants to kiss everyone, to check that every soul is happy, to smooth the small tensions between the others with nothing but the offering of herself.
She sprinkles joy wherever she goes. She cannot help it. It is simply the frequency she came in on.
Sometimes I sing to her ,Good Golly, Miss Molly and her whole tiny body answers with a wiggle and a waggle.
She is the one who saw the tortoise first, you may remember from an earlier story on my feed.
The most important development of any given morning is always, in Molly Joy’s view, happening right now, and she is on it.
I believe the angels brought her to me to heal my heart.
And she has.
The furniture the grief swept away ,she has been quietly carrying it back in, piece by piece, kiss by kiss, wet nose and snuggles every day since Easter Sunday 2020.
This is what I have come to understand, out here in the Karoo light, with a teacup dachshund asleep against my chest and her little white wings rising and falling with each breath.
That love does not end. It returns.
Sometimes it comes back wearing rainbows.
Sometimes it comes back small enough to hold in two hands.
And sometimes ,if you are paying attention, if you trust the sign you were given in the dream, it comes back wearing wings.
SharynAnn
She is a teacup. A teeny, tiny, long-haired black and tan dachshund, small enough to fold into two cupped hands, with the biggest heart on this mountain.
But before I tell you who she is, I have to tell you how she came.
I had a Jack Russell once, named Milo. Thirteen years of living and loving, gifted to me by my dear friends Cheryl and Anne, to hold my heart after my son Ryan’s death. And when she passed, the grief was the kind that empties the furniture out of you, the kind that sweeps the house bare.
And then one night, an angel came to me, in a dream.
Do not grieve Milo, the angel said. Her soul is returning to you. Your sign will be rainbows.
I held that. The way you hold something you cannot yet explain but know, somewhere beneath knowing, to be true.
On Easter Sunday, the 12th of April 2020 , resurrection day, the day the whole story of returning is told in churches all over the world, a tiny pup was born.
And over the ocean in Durban that morning, double rainbows arched across the sky. The whole city saw them. People posted them everywhere on Facebook, these two brightest most beautiful bands of colour over the water, and my feed filled with rainbows on the very day she drew her first breath.
There is was – Rainbows. On Easter.
The day of return.
I knew.
I knew the way you know the things that arrive from beyond.
Milo’s soul was coming back to me.
And her name would be Molly Joy.
I did not choose her name lightly. I never do.
My great-grandmother was called Molly. She was an angel reader and a healer in Ireland in her day, well known for it ,a woman who worked with the unseen the way other people work with their hands.
I am blessed to carry her gift. The same one. Passed down the long thread of the women in my family, to me.
Molly Joy’s namesake ,my great-grandmother, my lineage, the healing that runs in my blood.
And the Joy part of her name came from Denise Joy, Lance’s mother.
Two women. Two sides. One tiny dog to carry both names out into the world.
Molly Joy.
She was born on a 12.
And those of you who have walked with me a while know what I do with a number like that. One and two make three.
Three. The number of creation.
Of divine completeness.
The number I keep finding all over this mountain. Even our farm number is Farm 33
And you know what happens when you tip a 3 gently onto its side. It grows wings. I did not have to imagine those wings. Because Molly Joy has a patch of pure white fur on her tiny chest ,and it is shaped, exactly, like a pair of wings.
She came into this world wearing them. The 3, tipped onto its side, made into a soul and sent back to me with rainbows for a calling card and wings stitched into her chest.
I told you. Nothing about our lives are just random.
Lance calls her his little Ghandi.
Because she is the peacemaker of the pack. The schmoozer. The one who wants to kiss everyone, to check that every soul is happy, to smooth the small tensions between the others with nothing but the offering of herself.
She sprinkles joy wherever she goes. She cannot help it. It is simply the frequency she came in on.
Sometimes I sing to her ,Good Golly, Miss Molly and her whole tiny body answers with a wiggle and a waggle.
She is the one who saw the tortoise first, you may remember from an earlier story on my feed.
The most important development of any given morning is always, in Molly Joy’s view, happening right now, and she is on it.
I believe the angels brought her to me to heal my heart.
And she has.
The furniture the grief swept away ,she has been quietly carrying it back in, piece by piece, kiss by kiss, wet nose and snuggles every day since Easter Sunday 2020.
This is what I have come to understand, out here in the Karoo light, with a teacup dachshund asleep against my chest and her little white wings rising and falling with each breath.
That love does not end. It returns.
Sometimes it comes back wearing rainbows.
Sometimes it comes back small enough to hold in two hands.
And sometimes ,if you are paying attention, if you trust the sign you were given in the dream, it comes back wearing wings.
SharynAnn
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